Ten Thousand Miles
by Tears of Mercury
Summary: *BD AU* "This is how a world crumbles... this is how your life begins." Ex-pack member Seth Clearwater tells sixteen-year-old Renesmee the truth about her parents' deaths and shows her that even what's broken can be made new again. SethxNessie
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer:** SMeyer owns all. I merely write for amusement, and because twisting someone else's characters is much more fun than creating my own. I also don't own Mary Chapin Carpenter's _10,000 Miles_, the song from which I snitched the title of this story. Any quotes used will be credited. Okay? Okay.

**A/N:** Yes, this is a SethxNessie story. No, I am not delusional. Only mildly chemically imbalanced in thinking that approaching a crack ship seriously isn't going to get me lots of odd looks and flames from reviewers. I'm not really expecting any feedback, but if you'd like to give some, by all means please do! I'd love to hear how I can make Seth more in character, how I can make my writing better, or just what you'd like to see in the story. **For the purposes of this fic, _Breaking Dawn_ cannon is followed only through the first two "books", and Renesmee's aging process is that of a normal human.** Many thanks to my twilighted beta, vjgm. I hope you enjoy.

* * *

_I was born in the ashes of the fire, and I learned how to burn._

- The Stone Gods

**Chapter One**

_You are cold, suffocating, and wailing when you come into the world. There are venomous teeth crowding your face threateningly, and then strong, icy hands are coaxing you from the warmth of your safe haven._

Come out_, they seem to be saying, _come out and live. Because you're too big now, too hungry. If you stay where you are you will kill her (your world), and you will die, too.

_Those violent hands are ripping you from your mother's body and it is cold out here and you aren't sure how to breathe and you want to go back and – and then, for the first time you are seeing your father. You didn't think it was possible to love someone the way you love your mother, but there it is – his face – and suddenly you are a planet orbiting around twin suns. _

_Voices blend in a cacophony of sound around you. You can think and feel and now you can breathe, but when you try to understand the words they're forming it all falls and clatters against your ears like anvils. You understand that something is wrong, though. You can smell pre-death lingering in the air._

_Then your father, your wonderful, reverent, frantic daddy, is handing you over to another pair of arms. These ones are the antithesis of his: they are shaking so badly they can barely hold you. Your eyes swing around, and for the first time you see her. You stop crying in mid-scream, your entire face forming one long, oval 'O.' _

_So this is her. She is beautiful, beaming. Even with gray-white skin and a slowly failing heart, all you can see is the blood that runs under the surface of her skin, the tears staining her cheeks and glistening in her eyes and making her human. She is mother. She is lifeblood. _

_Her mouth opens, and all that racket converges into one beautiful, pure sound. She stutters and gasps for air, and you recognize the sound of your name as the fruit of her struggle. The most vital part of you, the part that is hers, jumps in recognition. She has known you and called you by a name. She, your sun, your universe. Everything in this strange new world is suddenly right. _

_But you are thirsty, so thirsty, and some primal instinct is directing your mouth to look to her for satisfaction. Your lips seek out a perfect, dark nipple and bite down lustily. Instead of hitting milk you penetrate skin. Then her arms are falling away from you and your father is lifting you back up, and suddenly you hear the growls of a third person. _

_You look up at him and are struck by the realization that he is important, the third strongest thread in the fabric of this new life. Eyes following him as he bends over her, your mouth stumbles and you try to babble something that will make sense to him._

It will be all right_, you want to tell him,_ my mother is strong and my father is stubborn. There is all the time in the world, still.

_Instead you just voice the senseless murmurs of a new citizen of earth. _

_Then there is another voice. Two growls rumble, one against your back and one from the strange man who still will not look at you. For a moment your lips tremble as you try to hold back an anxious sob. There is too much to see and understand, and you are worried you will forever be playing catch-up now that you don't have your mother to carry you. _

_You are moving (moved), and your hyper-sensitive little body feels each harsh bounce as you cross this long distance and are placed in a new set of arms. _

_Blond hair tickles your face, momentarily distracting you so that you don't realize your father is gone. When you notice his absence you begin crying in earnest._

Don't leave me, _you think_, I'm still so little, and I don't know my way. Who are these people, and how will they help me? Only you can teach me.

_But you find that this isn't true, because a musical voice is singing over you without words, and you are settling against a granite chest in exhaustion. Then you and your new partner are flying down the hall, her gentle voice still trying to distract and calm you. You squeeze your eyes shut and try to ignore the fact that you are on the outside now, letting the lullaby do its job and soothe you into oblivion. _

_Thirsty. You're still thirsty. _

_Something is forced into your clamped mouth, foreign and awkward and, like everything else apart from your mother, cold. You turn your head, choke. Try to cry. Then, as your mouth's movements force something out you swallow involuntarily; and then you are drinking (because it is _good_) and then you are gulping eagerly and there can never, ever be enough._

_There are loud, thudding steps. More noises to hurt your ears. You try to zero in on the delicious warmth sliding down your throat and heating you up from the inside out but are distracted by a sudden ripping sound. The hard chest with the soft blond hair is still leaning over you, cooing softly, so you are forced to lift your head and look for yourself._

_You see something beautiful and big. Russet fur and dark eyes, pained growls and tense paws. You aren't sure how, but you somehow know that this is the person from upstairs – the third addition to your universe's center. And he is angry, furious with you. _

Please don't be angry with me. It was scary and dark where I was, and then she offered me a place in her to rest. She was beautiful and kind and gave me all I needed. I would never hurt her. She will be fine, my mother. Reborn as something else – undead, you think now. But I know the truth. She will be more alive than ever.

_He is your third strand, so you are sure that if you can meet his eyes you can tell him this without bothering with that awful talking nonsense. He stares at you, through you, his eyes so sharp they almost cut your baby softness in half. Then they flare, a supernova of browns and blacks and yellows._

Oh_, you think, and your stomach drops. _

_This was not supposed to happen._

_He moves toward you and your caregiver, and it seems that he glows a little more with each step he takes._

No_, your mind/instinct says faintly,_ oh no_. _

_But he is not your father, and he does not listen. _

_Then it happens. You are whipped around. In an instant, an unquantifiable fraction of time that passes so quickly it rips away the sustenance still resting at your lips, you are facing away from him. A wail rises in your throat. _

_Growls and hisses. Screams and shouts and, as you hear the faint beat of momma's heart thump-thump-thumping back into being, there is an awful sound you know is the tearing of flesh. Howls and whines, snarls and roars. It comes at you from all sides and you are helpless to stop it. _

_You search for the sound of your mother's pulse frantically, wanting to push aside everything else. It is lost in the noise. Hands smooth over your cheeks and hair tickles your eyelashes and that beautiful, lyrical voice is singing over you again. It is so faint, though… _

_Because you are bewildered and scared and young (still so very young), you close your eyes and try to wish it all away._

_You hear much more. Footsteps and crashes and paws pounding into the floorboards (clatterclatterclatter). More ripping, more growling, more anguished cries. _

_Then you are being handed off once again, and your wail reaches its peak because you can't bear to leave one more person you trust. Hands like fire shock your skin, burn all the way to your bones. This skin is not snowy white like momma's and daddy's and Golden Hair's but copper like your wolf's. _

Shush-sh-sh, _this new person mutters over you. _

_They spring around, and then they are running, carrying you away from everything you know and into deep forests where nothing is safe. You cry, cry, cry as you hear the howls and growls and cries and hisses and tearing continue; scream again when that faint thump-thumping that is Mother, Mommy, Sun dies away. _

_The two of you stop, and the fat streams of saltwater running down your baby-fat cheeks and your double chin and your whisper-soft chest are joined by sharp points of moisture falling from somewhere up above. _

_Maybe because your Hard Chest and Golden Hair did it, maybe because it is their instinct to reach, reach, reach until they are holding you in this way, this new Warmth begins to vibrate with sound. Her voice is gravelly and harsh. (And you know, somehow, that this person is a 'she.') The rhythms aren't at all like that timeless melody from before; they are halting and jerky and repetitive. It is still, somehow, comforting._

_Then the howling and screaming and tearing have ended, and the sound above you breaks off too. _

_For a moment you simply gasp for air and hold tightly to each other. Then you are both letting out anguished, bleeding sobs._

_The woods are dark and quiet when someone comes for you and the Warmth. You can hear another voice, deep and hard, and burning hands trying to rip you away from your fiery arm-cradle. She holds you to her furiously. There is more shouting, and you are so tired, and your perfect, shining world is so broken and black, and then there is more singing. _

Shush-sh-sh_, she whispers, in between lines and vowels. _

_You finally fall asleep, your tears dried to your skin and your bloodless, invisible scars festering._

_This is how a world crumbles. This is how people die._

_This is how your life begins._

:o:o:

Renesmee was crying silently when she woke. Her tears were cold and wet as they slid down her face, leaving her nose unclogged and her breathing even. She had a strange, sad feeling of displacement, as if she was supposed to mourning something but had forgotten what.

"Nessie?" Her older sister's dark head popped up from the surface of the pull-out bed. "Are you okay?"

"Just a bad dream," she whispered, her chest aching with a strange weight. "You should go back to sleep."

Claire ignored her, though, and, after rising to all fours and crawling across the mattress, she pulled herself up onto the full bed and settled in a hairsbreadth away from her younger sibling. Her dark hands reached out and pushed back Nessie's hair, which was shining faintly even in the darkness. She took in the watery eyes and shaking limbs with her big sister sixth sense and sighed sympathetically. "Oh, sweetie" Her calloused thumbs brushed at the thin water trails Nessie's tears had left in the creases of her nostrils and the wrinkles around her eyes.

Renesmee curled into her big sister. She slid down until she had to bend her knees to keep from falling off the bed. It was worth it, though, to be able to rest her head under much-shorter Claire's pointed chin. Everything about the hug was comforting, the alternately soft and hard lines of Claire's body seeming to relay an unspoken understanding. This didn't surprise Nessie; Claire had an almost unnatural way of knowing exactly what she needed. There were times when she felt more like a mother or a best friend than the controlling, annoying older sibling she was supposed to be.

"There was a forest… and Leah was singing a tribal song. But there was someone else – something before that – everyone was shouting, and I couldn't –" Nessie broke off, her open eyes gazing into the branches and undergrowth from her memory. She was frustrated that she couldn't remember anything more, but Claire's magic hands were smoothing the frustration away as they stroked her hair and rubbed circles into her back.

"Do you think you were remembering the fire?"

She exhaled noisily. "I don't know. I can always feel it so clearly while I'm there, but then I wake up and it all… drifts. My mind won't let me remember." Claire was silent, merely slowing her movements as she let Nessie talk it out. "It doesn't scare me – I mean, I know it's over now. But I just wish that I could remember. That I could say goodbye."

Claire pulled away slightly, and Nessie shifted over on the bed so that she wasn't clinging to the edge. A tiny hand propped up her head, and their eyes met in the dark. Claire's face was considering. "Have you considered that maybe this is all you have of that day? I mean, I don't know much about infant development, but most people don't have a coherent memory of anything before their second birthday. Maybe your brain is just trying to fill in the blanks in what you've been told with random information."

A frown wrinkled her brow. Logically she knew that her sister was probably right. But it didn't _feel_ that way. Some part of her was sure that if she just stretched her mind far enough, she'd be able to remember everything. And, surprisingly, Renesmee found that she wanted to remember. All the trauma and headaches in the world would be worth it if she could catch one glimpse of her birth mother's face.

Her muscles clenched, a fist closing around her lungs. "I hate the feeling I get when I wake up like this. Like I've been hollowed out."

Claire's warm hand reached across to touch her face. "You're not, though. You're here, and you're breathing, and you're real." Her tinkling laugh bounced between them. "You still have the coldest skin I've ever felt… but you're fine."

"Yeah," Nessie agreed, "fine." She couldn't quite make herself believe it, though.

Her sister's knowing gaze bored into her. "Do you want me to stay up here with you?"

She gave a tiny nod, pulling the covers up to her chin. Claire burrowed under the blankets. Once she was situated, she scooted forward and wrapped her arms around Nessie. "This will all look better in the morning. Maybe you can talk to mom and dad, get some answers. You're more than old enough to know whatever you want."

Nessie was already halfway asleep as her sister's drowsy suggestion reached her ears, and she only managed a sleepy slur of agreement before her eyes drifted closed. Sometime during the night, a low, exhausted voice wisped across the dreamscape, drawing out her name in taxed breaths: _"Re – nes – mee." _By morning the only remaining trace of the memory was the faint smile on Rensemee's lips. Everything else had faded into oblivion, chasing after the nightmares that preceded it.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N:** Okay, here's chapter two from Seth's POV. I'm not sure how well I'm doing with his character - it's kind of tricky to write someone who's both thirty-one and stuck at somewhere between fourteen and twenty physically and mentally. Thank you to everyone who read and alerted, and a cookie to **RoxyLo**, who reviewed. :)

I also wanted to make one thing clear before the story goes any further: **_this is NOT an anti-Jake story._** And, although my feelings on the Jake/Nessie pairing aren't exactly friendly, it's not an attack on that pairing, either. Whatever my fandom feelings toward the character, I try to leave those behind when I'm writing. Jake's not going to be left out in the cold while everyone else rides off into the sunset, and he's not going to be some pedophilic, abusive monster either. I only wanted to bring this up now because after the beginning of the chapter, some people might get the wrong idea. I didn't want anyone closing out of the window convinced that this is just another "Jake rapes Bella/kills Edward/ruins everyone's lives" fic.

steps down from soap box Now that that's over with, I hope ya'll enjoy the chapter!

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_It's a lot easier to be lost than found. It's the reason we're always searching, and rarely discovered - so many locks, not enough keys._

- Lock and Key

**Chapter Two**

_I'm patrolling the north edge of the forest and ignoring Leah's latest snit when Jacob phases. _

_I feel it immediately: hurt. Disbelief. Shock. Rage. We both do. He's not thinking clearly, hasn't been thinking clearly since the wedding, really, and now it's all getting ready to come out in one explosive act of violence. The whole gruesome birth scene is playing on a loop in his head until he's seeing red and Leah is yelping in pain. Jake is skulking across the living room floor, his eyes fixed on the target and murder on his mind._

I'll kill her. I'll _kill_ her.

Wait, Jake, WAIT!_ I yell, hoping desperately that he'll listen. I abandon the perimeter when he keeps moving forward, knowing that even the threat of the entire pack attacking isn't as dangerous as Jake killing Bella and Edward's baby would be. Leah is shouting something at him, too, trying desperately to distract him, hold him off, anything to keep him from starting a war with the vampires. _

This is not happening_, I think, _Jake can't be about to do this.

_Then:_

_Then, I'm looking at Renesmee through Jacob's eyes, and gravity is uprooted so abruptly that I'm keening, struggling not to collapse on all fours and cling to the earth for anchorage. The baby, the baby girl with Bella's eyes and Edward's nose and a bottle of blood nestled against her lips, is looking up at me/him/Leah so innocently and trustingly that my/his/her whole being is coiling to protect her. _

_My stomach is lurching and my limbs are shaking and, oh God, I can _feel_ what Jacob is feeling and he's feeling like this baby that he's considered Bella's death sentence and the worst of the leeches for so long is now his only reason in the world to keep hanging on. Nothing exists but her soft, unblemished skin and pure brown eyes; nothing matters but the tiny crease in those perfect, almost invisible eyebrows as she tries to plead with him/me._

_And Jacob is thinking that she's choking on that thick red blood, that they're poisoning her the way they poisoned her mother and that she's saying, _Help, please, get me out of here.

_But the imprinting is over. My mind is starting to become my own again, and through Jacob's stormy emotions and Leah's knee-jerk disgust at this earth-shattering development I realize that Renesmee's not scared of Rosalie at all. She's afraid of him. _

_Jacob, who is in wolf form and was growling menacingly at her just seconds ago. Jacob, who is now snarling at her godmother, teeth exposed and body poised to leap._

_Then Emmett and Jasper and Alice are barreling in through the door, and quicker than I/Leah/Jake can blink, quicker than anything can be done to stop him, Emmett, who has recognized the danger to his mate, is crashing into me/Leah/Jacob and fighting like his life depends on it (and maybe it does)._

_I have tunnel vision, only able to see Jacob's view of Emmett as the two of them fight and the unbeaten trail underneath my feet. _Faster_,_ _I think, _faster – _and then, _why aren't the rest of them _doing_ anything?

A_ howl goes up somewhere, and suddenly I'm aware of the other, larger pack coming out of their hiding place a few miles off from the Cullen's house and beating a quick path toward Jacob and Renesmee. My brothers getting ready to attack my leader. Leah and I both turn and move toward them: we protect our Alpha first and foremost, but it's our job to protect his imprint as well. The thought – that that's what Bella's baby is, now, and that that's the reason why this fight can't happen, can't get any bigger – makes me sick for some reason I don't understand. _

_We burst out from opposite ends of the clearing, coming face to face with the rest of the wolves. I wish I could say something, tell them _why_ they can't come any further, why they can't make this crappy situation even worse, but they're not in my head anymore and phasing right now isn't safe; so instead I join Leah and make a small, pathetic barrier between them and their targets. _

_Then Paul is coming straight at me, teeth bared, foreleg raised like he's going to swing –_

:o:o:

Seth ripped through the woods with rapidly increasing agitation. Twigs and branches snapped under his paws and the small, nocturnal wildlife skittered away from him as his determined beeline took him into ever thicker foliage and underbrush. His quick movements sprayed lines of icy snow into the surrounding trees.

_You're getting reckless_, he thought, and tried to coach himself into some semblance of stealth. It shouldn't have been very hard – in his wolf form he was naturally graceful. It seemed, though, that his refusal to scream his way out of his nightmares had translated into a fierce need to make as much noise as possible now that he was awake. His heart pounded frantically, his lips curling into a snarl as his animal instincts reacted to the recognition of an invisible threat.

Finally, his movements slowed and quieted. His pell-mell run shifted into a lighter, less taxing one and his tail twitched as the muscles in his back relaxed. With the forest sounds ringing in his ears and his every hair on end, he felt a rare and peaceful communion with his wolf side. For a moment the years and miles had melted away and he was back at home, simply going for a late-night run with his prickly older sister.

Seth gave a short, joyful bark as he picked up the trail of a small but tasty animal, and within seconds he was noiselessly creeping toward his prey. _Just a little… bit…_

_Hey, hot stuff, get back into your Levis. Collin and Quil are picking up patrol in fifteen minutes._

With a beautifully estimated leap, Seth pounced on the helpless creature and gently broke its neck. _Yes!_ He growled happily before tucking into his late-night snack.

_Ugh. You couldn't wait twenty minutes and toss a burrito in the microwave?_

Leah's alert, condescending voice broke into his thoughtless munching and he heaved a great, soundless sigh. _No, I couldn't. All that running made me hungry._

_Yeah, I'd probably be pretty hungry too if I was trying to jump out of my pelt._

As the last remnants of meat disappeared he turned his attention to cleaning his forepaws. _Rest in peace, little rabbit. You've contributed to a worthy cause._

_Since when is feeding your gluttony a worthy cause?_

A groan rumbled in Seth's throat, transformed into a snarl by his vocal chords. _You're not usually this annoying._

_It was a long day. I had to cover for Embry when his wife decided to go into labor, and Emily called to tell me that she and Kim are dragging me over to Quil's place tomorrow so we can coo over bridal crap with Claire and the leech._

He stiffened at the mention of Renesmee. There was a quick, sharp pull in his chest at the memories conjured: Bella, pregnant and half dead; Edward, wild-eyed and desperate; the two of them holding each other the many times they'd 'heard' their daughter. Even the scorn in Leah's voice and the dismissive name she used didn't cut through her obvious affection for the last remaining member of the Cullen clan.

– "_Seth, stay with Bella! You have to stay with Bella!" –_

With a few long breaths, he rose to all fours and started back through the woods. _How is she?_ he asked softly.

There was nearly a minute of silence in which only Leah's mental presence came through. Then her voice picked up, monotone and sarcastic as ever. _She's peachy. She hit sixteen last week, and Jacob's self-imposed monkitude is now officially over. He's practically beside himself with joy._

Seth's ears flattened at the implication in her tone. He felt an almost familial surge of protection. _So they haven't told her _anything_?_

_Not yet. Jake _says_ he's just waiting until the time is right, whenever the hell that's supposed to be. Naomi and Eric are starting to get antsy, though. They thought the cat would be out of the bag as soon as her birthday was over._

Before he could stop it another growl was ripping through his chest. His stride quickened as he tried to beat out the sudden increase of aggression. _It's not my problem anymore,_ he reminded himself. _Her parents love her. And Jake wouldn't hurt his own imprint._

Leah answered his comments as if they had been addressed to her, the bond in their head suddenly quieting to a near-inaudible string of thought. _She's okay, Seth. Happy. Claire and Erin love her like you wouldn't believe. She's got good parents. The pack considers her a little sister. Even if she leaves Jake, she's not going to be alone._

_You really think she will?_

_I… _her thoughts stopped mid-train. Something between a whine and a yelp escaped his throat; he had the nagging suspicion that whatever she was about to say had been brewing for awhile. A moment later her voice resumed in quick, jumbled spurts. _Look, Seth, you know that His Highness has ordered me to keep my mouth shut. But she's been getting restless lately, and I think… all I'm saying is, maybe you should come home. It might not be as hard for her to hear the truth from a stranger._

His spine stiffened. Even if he'd never met her, even if he'd been gone for years, he still couldn't make himself believe that he was a stranger. He had been the one willing to leave his pack to protect her and her family. He had been the one to sit by Bella when she got cold and the one to talk to Edward when he got too tense. He was the one Edward had –

_Seth… it wasn't your fault._ The sisterly lilt to her mind-voice was so rarely heard that it almost had him turning around, expecting to find Leah standing right behind him in wolf form. As voices and memories crowded his head, he tried to hone in on her presence in his mind and push everything else back.

_I know. I just… _The image he'd woken to flashed across his mind and he reared back and let out a long, piercing howl.

_God, will you stop thinking about that?! I can hardly look at Nessie anymore without seeing that room._

He hung his giant head in guilt. _Sorry, Lee Lee._

_It's not your fault. Jacob thinks about it, too. But Seth… it's been sixteen years. Maybe it's time to come home._

Despite the promise he had made to himself, for a moment Seth thought about it. For most of the wolves phasing had been a curse. For him it had been completion – proof that he finally belonged somewhere, was a part of something greater than himself. He'd been willing to follow Sam and Jacob to the ends of the earth if they asked it of him, to put himself in a situation he probably wouldn't live through if that was what was needed. Not being near his brothers, both physically and spiritually, was a wound almost as deep as his reasons for leaving in the first place. And he missed his human family, too: his father's mother, who had been the quiet presence in the house after his dad's death, and his mother, who still refused to talk to him. His sister, the only one who had fought for him and the only one who he had any sort of contact with, was the one he missed most.

_I can't come back. Alpha's orders._

Leah snarled impatiently. _You leave Jacob to me. _

He exhaled noisily. _I still can't come back. I'm sorry._

_What the hell is wrong with you, Seth? Do you have any idea how much this is hurting mom? Her goddamn husband thinks that he's the reason you're gone, and of course that means that he's always looking for leads on your whereabouts and putting out missing persons notices. You think it bad when Jake disappeared years ago? This is ten times worse. And mom –_

_The same mom who won't even take my calls?_ he interrupted. Seth pushed his paws into the ground harder than necessary as he felt the familiar trickle of annoyance and pain.

_You know mom. She's convinced that if she ignores you long enough, you'll have to come back. She bawls every year on your birthday._

Crap. Leah was good, and she knew it. His heart stuttered at the thought of his mom, who hadn't even cried at his father's funeral, crying over him. It made him feel like the kicked puppy his sister always accused him of being, and with a soft growl he acknowledged that the guilt trip she'd been laying was working.

_Besides, what about me? Not only do I have to deal with Jacob and his panting after a soul mate that isn't even legal but I also get the shitty job of playing go-between with the rest of the pack. It doesn't help that once I finally get an imprint he can't –_

_You _imprinted_? _Seth broke off from his focused run, bounding through the trees in excitement. _Man, I can't believe you didn't tell me! What is he like? Where did you meet him? Have you told the pack about him yet? Have you told _him _about the _pack_? Is he –_

_Calm down, Seth! And no, I haven't told him anything yet. He tried to pick me up at a bar – _Leah's voice became pained – _I turned around, and he just… ah. _Her voice turned smug. _But I told him to go fuck himself when he asked me out on a date._

He made a high-pitched sound of distress. Leave it to Leah to purposely shoot down the one person who probably wasn't naturally scared out of their mind by her. _You just told him to… do that… and then let him leave? What the _heck_, Leah?_

_Oh, relax. He told me I was full of shit, and we're going out tomorrow night. Only because it was that or a bonfire with all the other furballs, though. __If he doesn't screw things up irredeemably, and that's a _big_ if, maybe I'll let him call me. _

An image of a tall man – Seth guessed he was probably over six feet – with black hair and eyes and slightly Middle Eastern features flashed into Seth's head. Leah's satisfaction and lust (ugh) were palpable. Still, even with the awkwardness of having to feel his sister's overpowering love, resentment, panic, and less than innocent appreciation for her imprint, he couldn't help but be glad that she'd found someone. Just because she could take care of herself didn't mean she should have to. _You could be taking care of her if you were with the pack – where you belong,_ a small, wheedling voice in his head taunted him.

She spoke again, softly and sounding much more sincere than before. _This is really big for me, Seth. I mean, I'm not going starry-eyed or expecting true love, but I just never thought that this was a possibility. Now that I know it is, I'm not sure how I'm going to do this without screwing up. I haven't told any of the guys yet, and when I tell Quinn I'd really like it if you were there to meet him. Or, you know, serve as a punching bag if he turns out to be a huge pansy and catches the next bus out of town._

_That won't happen, Lee Lee,_ he thought firmly. _Imprinting is forever._ He slowed as the small house he lived in came into view.

A brief, unsettling disturbance rippled through their mental link, and he could almost feel the set-in of her dark mood. _Is it?_ Before he could answer, she reminded him that Quil and Collin were taking over for her in five minutes.

_Okay_, he thought glumly._ I guess I'll talk to you tomorrow? _

_Unless my date goes _really _well._

He shuddered at the implications, spouting off a mental 'yuck' and making sure it reached her. He felt a quick stab of loneliness as he got ready to phase.

_Bye, Leah._

_See ya soon, little brother._

With that, he let his wolf instincts wane and felt his body shifting and reforming as he took human form once more. The Alaskan winter sent a faintly noticeable chill up his back, and he made his way quickly to the open garage and the pair of pajama pants he'd left on the bench. Seth groaned when he caught sight of the clock and realized that he only had two hours before he had to be up for work; three, if he was lazy.

The run had exhausted him, and his nightmares, once cut off, thankfully left him alone. As he climbed into bed and shifted onto his back, though, it wasn't Edward or Bella's voice that he heard. It was his sister's, grim and contemplative, as she questioned the one bond they'd been led to believe was unbreakable. His easy acceptance of everything werewolf and his need for sleep were hard to counteract, though, and even his sister's guilt trips and general moodiness weren't enough to keep him tossing and turning for more than a minute. Seth slept peacefully through the remainder of the night.


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N:** Hey, guys! Sorry about the delay getting chapter three up. Four is... in the works. I dunno. I'm kicking around POVs and trying to iron out plot holes. Hopefully it will get written soon. Thanks to the person who favorited, and a cyber-brownie to RoxyLo, who has reviewed both chapters. You're awesome. :) Now onto the chapter. Enjoy.

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_You are what you're born, always and forever. That's the understanding._

- A Great and Terrible Beauty

**Chapter Three**

Renesmee woke sometime before dawn. Claire's breath hit her neck in rhythmic puffs, and she struggled not to squirm under the ticklish sensation. She took her time opening her eyes, dreading waking up and having to get out of bed. Eventually the dull ache in her stomach became a pronounced burning and her eyelids lifted involuntarily. Her head was still clouded with snippets of last night's dreams, and she looked bewilderedly around the dark room, for a moment feeling strangely displaced.

_It is safe here, in this Warmth that is so like the place where you came from. Strong arms curl around you and make you unafraid of falling._

Her eyelids already dropping, she whispered Leah's name in a raspy voice. There was no answer, and at her sister's tiny sigh she shifted back into the present. Her limbs were weak and shaking. She ignored the pulsing knot that had taken up residence at the base of her skull and tried to focus on slipping back into sleep, hoping for a few more hours of restless sleep before their mother's wakeup call.

Suddenly the bedspread was being yanked from her head. Rare sunshine filtered in proudly through the window. Renesmee blinked rapidly before remembering being half awake sometime before dawn and then passing out again in exhaustion.

A high, clear voice rang out through the small room. "Rise and shine, duckies! Hurry, sit up before the tray gets too heavy and I drop it on someone's head!"

Nessie groaned as Claire, in an attempt to put something between the morning light and their suddenly cover-less eyes, miscalculated her position on the bed and yanked at Nessie's nightgown. "Claire – I can't _breathe_."

Claire instantly relaxed her fingers. She made a soft, pitiful mewling sound and burrowed her head into the space between her sister's shoulder blades. "Ith's too urrrrly to get up," she whined.

"Guys, focus here! Twenty pound breakfast tray, lots of food, big sis's muscles atrophying by the moment? Any of this sound familiar to you?"

Nessie unsuccessfully tried to blow a trapped strand of hair away from her mouth. Her migraine pounded dully at her temples. "Ugh, I can't feel my legs."

There was a loud rattle as something was dropped on the clothes dresser and then the previously turned-back comforter was being yanked from the bed. Both sisters cringed against the sudden chill. A third, taller woman stood against the window smiling victoriously. She spread her arms grandly. "Well, what about my welcome? Did you miss me?"

"Good morning, Erin," Renesmee said dutifully. She tried to focus her bleary eyes on her oldest sister but found herself being yanked back when she tried to lift her head. "Ow, Claire! You're on my hair!"

Another pathetic sound vibrated against her back, and then Claire's weight left as she shifted on the bed and curled in on herself to conserve warmth. Nessie sighed gratefully and sat up. Her neck and back were stiff, and her bent legs ached severely when she tried to move them. "We're never sleeping together again," she announced, trying unsuccessfully to work the kink out of her neck with a long stretch.

"Did you grow again while I was gone?" Erin demanded. "You did, didn't you? Ugh, I can't even look at you." As she said this, though, she had walked over to the bed and thrown herself down on the unoccupied right side. Her short, choppy haircut swayed crazily as the bedsprings bounced. She turned to face them and propped her head up with one hand. The other immediately started playing with a loose string at the bottom of her shirt. Her brown eyes grew round and mournful. "I guess breakfast in bed was a bust, huh? I made hazelnut coffee and everything."

That mere mention of coffee instigated a sudden upset near the edge of the bed, and at a speed that would have impressed even Leah Clearwater, Claire was standing beside the abandoned tray and rifling through its contents in search of creamer and sugar. "You know, Claire, adding three spoonfuls of sugar and half a cup of creamer pretty much defeats the purpose. Does the caffeine even have time to work before the sugar buzz hits?" Renesmee snickered in amusement.

Claire looked coolly over at her sisters through the curtain of her tangled hair. "Well, Erin, if you don't think I should be drinking it then you shouldn't have brought any up."

Nessie rolled her eyes when Erin fell back into the mattress and threw quick, useless punches at one of the pillows. "How's the play going?" she asked.

Erin immediately perked up, her hands flying animatedly as a steady stream of 'theater talk' left her mouth. "Oh, it's absolutely great! We got the best fabric for the kitchen set, and one of the moms on the PTA said that she could get us a deal on paint at the local hardware store. I love small towns."

"And how are the stars of the show?" Claire asked, coming over to sit down at the end of the bed.

Her glowing smile dimmed. "Well, Sharon's wonderful. But Tim's voice has been cracking a lot over the past week, and it's making me twitchy. I will never forgive that child if his voice chooses _now_ to change."

Nessie somehow doubted that there was anything a twelve-year-old could do about puberty if he hadn't even been able to escape auditioning for the winter play, but she decided silence was the most prudent response.

"The house is really quiet," Claire observed. "Where are mom and dad?"

Erin waved her hand in the air dismissively. "They're out somewhere. As soon as they heard I would be around all evening to supervise Bee and Jake at the bonfire they grabbed their stuff and left."

Renesmee felt the familiar twinge of aggravated affection at hearing her sister's pet name for her. When she'd first been adopted, Erin was absolutely horrified that anyone would name their child something as hideous as _Nessie_, and had immediately set about finding a better sounding alternative. She'd eventually arrived at the nickname Bambi, after the orphan baby deer of the same name who shared her baby sister's large brown eyes. In a burst of annoyance at Claire she'd nicknamed her Thumper. Nessie's nickname had eventually been shortened to 'Bee', in the hopes that if enough people heard it it would stick. It was Claire's pet name, though, that had gained popularity with the adults. Nessie was still Nessie to everyone but Erin.

"Oh! I used a new muffin recipe this morning, Bee. I got it from the wrestling coach." Erin winked and propelled herself off the bed with a large bounce. Nessie and Claire scooted to the head of the bed to make room for the tray Erin was bringing back. "It's got all kinds of carbohydrates and proteins and stuff. You know, basically anything healthy with the label 'good fat' is in here. And supposedly it tastes like strawberries." She set the tray down with a gentle plop.

Nessie eyed the muffins doubtfully. They were an unnatural shade of grey and looked completely dried out. She picked one up with careful hands and took a small bite. It didn't taste much better than it looked, but a moment after she swallowed it settled solidly in her stomach. The throb behind her eyes lessened.

"Do we have a winner?" Claire asked. She'd smoothed her hair back, and her eyes were alert behind her coffee cup.

"Yep," Nessie announced cheerfully. She bit in again, grimacing a little at the taste. She swallowed quickly.

Erin squealed happily and settled back onto the bed. "Oh, good! I was hoping you would like them." She picked up a strand of Nessie's hair and rubbed it between her fingers. "I used to be so jealous of your hair. When you first came to live with us, I thought you had to be an angel. You didn't look like any white person I'd ever met."

Remembering last night's groggy conversation with Claire, Renesmee set down the empty muffin wrapper and looked at her sister nervously. "Erin, when mom and dad first brought me home, what was it like?"

She shifted into a more comfortable position, her black hair brushing against the fiery strands still in her fist. "Well, first of all, we didn't bring you home. Sam and Jake brought you to us."

Claire set down her mug on the bedside table. "Really?" she asked, her eyes burning with interest. "I never knew that."

"Oh, yeah," Erin nodded. "I remember that it was at some ungodly hour of the morning. Mae Walker's seventh birthday party was that day, so I'd gotten up before dawn to put my outfit together. The doorbell rang, and dad stumbled out of bed with a baseball bat – why he though a burglar would ring the doorbell, I have no idea – and when he opened it I heard someone talking. Mom got up, and I waited until she was downstairs and then went to sit at the top of the stairs.

"I knew everyone in the pack by then, and I could pick out Sam's voice immediately. He was talking really softly, though. Jake was standing beside him, with you in his arms. I'm not sure what they were saying, but eventually Jake gave you to mom. You were crying, but really quietly. Daddy looked angry, but mom was staring down at you and she was just completely taken. You could tell.

"The men all argued for awhile. I think Jacob probably wanted to stay, but Sam was trying to get him to leave. He kept on talking about a meeting and decisions that needed to be made. I don't know. I was half asleep when mom came up the stairs, and she told me to meet my little sister and then took me back to bed. The next morning Claire's old crib was set up in the corner of my room, and mom was asleep with you in the rocking chair."

Nessie fingered the edge of the gilded tray for a moment before looking up at Erin. "Was I sick when I was little? I know I had a lot of health problems once I got older, but was I always that way?" Asking the question made her feel awkward and uncomfortable, as if discussing what was an everyday conversation topic was somehow wrong. The usual embarrassment was tenfold now, and she had the urge to cross her arms over her chest.

Her sister leaned forward until their heads were touching. "I don't know if you were sick, but you cried a lot. You were quiet about it – you weren't a screamer like Thumper over here – but it was really rare to see you content, much less smiling. It was a tense couple of months for everyone. We still weren't sure if we were going to keep you."

She stiffened. Claire glared at Erin. "God, how can you say that to her? She wasn't some puppy we picked up off the street. This is our _sister_."

Erin's eyes were wide as she looked up at Nessie. "No, I didn't mean it like that!" she said earnestly. "Shit, you know that's not what I meant. But Jake had it in his head that he was going to petition the courts for guardianship, and Sam and Emily were considering adopting you, and we were kind of just in the middle of it all, with mom and Leah ready to rip apart anyone who even looked at you too closely. It wasn't like that at all. It was just the opposite. Everyone wanted you to themselves."

"I don't understand," Claire interrupted. "Jake wanted custody of Nessie? Why would anyone else consider adopting her, then? He's her imprint."

"Exactly," Erin said acidly. "You might trust those mutts to keep their paws where they can be seen at all times, but do you really think everyone thought that it would be a good idea to let Bee's _soul mate_ live with her without outside supervision? Besides, how much would it have confused her to find out that her father was going to be her husband someday?"

The receding ache in Nessie's head came back with a vengeance. "But you said that Sam and Emily were considering adopting me, too? Why wouldn't they have tried to keep me in La Push? And how does Leah fit into all of this?"

Claire was leaning forward, frowning in curiosity. Erin looked between the two of them in disbelief. "You honestly don't know anything about this, do you? Either of you. Damn. Well, after Jacob realized how devastatingly stupid it would be to try to raise you himself, Emily and Sam were his first choice. Sam was ready to take you home as soon as possible, but I guess Emily froze up or something. She loved you to death, though, which was the weirdest part. I understand, though. I mean, she would have to have been even younger than I am now. As for Leah…" She bit her lip, gazing at Nessie uncertainly. "Leah claims that you were willed to her."

_You sleep for a long time. Days, maybe. Your tiny ear presses against an expanding and contracting chest so that even in your dreams you can hear the steady bump-bump, bump, bump-bump-bump of life. You cling to that sound, wishing you could curl up inside of it._

Renesmee felt her heartbeat falter. She blinked past the half-formed thought at the edge of her mind. "I was willed to her? Leah knew my birth parents?" She was suddenly aware that her hands were shaking, and she twisted them together in her lap.

Erin nodded slowly. "I think so. But from what I understand, there was never any kind of legal agreement. It wasn't even your parents that she talked to – it was your godmother." Regret was filtering into her features, as if she was just now realizing how quick she'd been in supplying this information.

"I don't… I don't understand," she croaked. Claire slid a comforting hand around her own clenched ones and Erin brushed her hair back from her shoulder.

"By werewolf standards Leah would still have been relatively young. I'd guess that no one wanted to risk her phasing and hurting you after what happened to Emily," Claire supplied quietly.

She stared unseeingly at her sister. "They knew my parents. They all knew my parents." Her mouth continued to move wordlessly.

She bit into her bottom lip, hard. It wasn't her mother who had intended for her to go to Leah but her godmother. What did that mean? Was everyone in her extended biological family dead? How could they have all died so closely together that she'd never known any of them unless they'd died at the same time? But if they'd died together then Leah's claim didn't make any sense.

Claire's eyes were pained. "Oh, Nessie. I'm so sorry. I never would have suggested talking to mom and dad about all this if I knew…"

Erin puffed up in irritation. "Don't be ridiculous. Maybe it's not important to her to find out right now, but someday it probably will be. She deserves to know, even if it's not necessarily pretty."

"I'm… I'm going to go take a shower," Nessie murmured. She shifted off the bed, her exhaustion a palpable weight.

"Are you sure you don't want another muffin?" Erin asked anxiously. "Or maybe some coffee?"

"No," she shook her head, "I'm just going to go get ready. Emily and Kim should be here soon." _And Leah._ Her sisters' eyes burned holes in her back as she left the room.

She moved across the hall and pulled the bathroom door shut behind her. As she pulled her tank top over her head she turned toward the mirror and paused. Her fingers went lax around the material as she studied herself woodenly. Her eyes moved over the familiar – the brown eyes Jake loved so much; the bright hair that seemed to defy being classified as any one specific color; the dark rings above her ghost-white cheekbones – and then moved to the newer developments. Over the summer she'd had another painful growth spurt, and this time she'd grown breasts. Her figure wasn't as rounded as Erin's, but in comparison with her protruding ribs and stick-figure legs, her chest seemed fuller than it actually was. Much to her mother's protests, she'd cut her hair to just above her collarbones this past fall. For the first time she realized that it was already threatening to brush reach her elbows.

Erin's earlier words nagged her. _"When you first came to live with us, I thought you had to be an angel. You didn't look like any white person I'd ever met."_ It was true, too. She obviously wasn't Makah, but even with her Caucasian features she looked somehow foreign.

Nessie wondered which of her biological parents she favored. Whose full, slightly unbalanced lips had she inherited? Why couldn't she walk in a straight line without tripping, and why did she spend so much time living in her own head and observing other people? Had she been cast from the same mold as her other set of parents, or would she still be the one who didn't quite look like they belonged in family portraits if they had survived to raise her?

_DO you belong?_

She fingered the bracelet on her wrist. "I belong with Jake," she whispered. Her voice sounded raw in the tinny acoustics of the bathroom. _If nothing else_, she thought fiercely, _if I never belong anywhere but with him, I belong with Jacob. _

She stared challengingly at the grim reflection in the mirror. This person, she thought, had always been Jake's, even when she was too young to recognize him as anything but a brother. Regardless of Erin's rants about free will and Claire's quiet insistence that imprinted relationships were a choice, she clung to her fated bond to Jacob with both hands. On the nights she woke from dreams about dark woods and tearful voices, it wasn't her family's claim of belonging that comforted her. It was Jacob's.

Nessie had always belonged to Jacob. And now, staring at the hollow-eyed girl in front of her, it quelled her instinctive fear of abandonment in ways she couldn't begin to describe to know that she always would.


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N:** Ack! I'm really sorry this took so long to write, edit, and post. This chapter gave me all kinds of problems. I think the next one should be a bit easier, though! Now, two things:

1. Major thanks to anyone who has reviewed, alerted, or favorited this story. Ya'll are awesome, and even if this story doesn't have many reviews, the ones it does get always makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside.

2. I wanted to try something I've seen a few other authors do, just as a 'thanks' to the people reading. Anyone who reviews this chapter will be PMed a sneak peek at chapter five.

Again, thanks to everyone taking the time to read! I hope you enjoy. :)

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"We change, whether we like it or not."

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

**Chapter Four**

"Well, what do you think?"

I keep my eyes on the stone fireplace as David walks up behind me. I already know I want to rent the house, but I'm not quite sure what his asking price is or what he's planning on for a lease deal. The whole idea of renting is nerve-wracking to me – I haven't stayed in a town for more than six months since leaving home. Usually I just stayed on as a boarder somewhere until it felt like time to leave or someone asked one too many questions.

"It's really nice," I say truthfully. I turn around to face him, meeting his eyes. His eyebrows lift questioningly at my unspoken 'but'. "I'm not sure I can afford it, though. I usually get by on carpentry and construction work, but no one around town seems to be asking." My mom's voice is loud in my head, admonishing me for not paying more attention during high school or staying near the reservation to work at dad's old fishery. This is the kind of lifestyle she always ranted about when I was growing up: alone and rootless in a mostly white world with no real job security and no guaranteed income. Somehow I get the feeling those lectures were meant to be warnings and not a prophecy. 

David considers this for a moment. "Well," he finally says, "There's a widow in town who needs some work done on her house. She's been beating around the bush for months – afraid of getting scammed. If you're willing to ask a fair price and do good work, I could put in a word for you. We're a small community here, and if there's someone in town who can do the work we generally don't look outside for help." 

What he's describing sounds uncomfortably like La Push. 

I can see him notice my shoulders tensing, my hands balling into fists. A humorous smile crosses his face. "We're not the type to pry here. You're pretty far outside town limits, anyway." He lifts his hand and I'm left struggling not to pull away before it comes down on my shoulder. The pad of his thumb brushes against the line of thick tissue that mars my skin; and then he's frowning, staring at the scar spanning the length of my neck. "That's a nasty battle wound. Where'd you get it?"

I do flinch now. I don't know if it's some mystical wolf sense or if it's just in my head, but I can swear that the entire scar is burning, from the bottom of my ear to the edge of the opposite hip. My hand automatically comes up to cover the scar, which usually blends in with the rest of my skin until closer inspection. I struggle against the oddly defensive feelings that always bubble up when someone comments on it. "I had a falling out with some friends," I explain haltingly. 

He looks shocked, if not any more wary about leasing the cabin to me. It takes him a second to put together a reply. "Some friends."

Paul's snarling face flashes in my head and a wry smile tugs at my mouth. I know firsthand that the wounds Leah inflicted on him after the fact were twice as bad as the ones I was left with. It suddenly hits me, though, that this probably isn't making me look like the kind of guy he wants living in his house. The last thing I want is to seem like the poster guy for every negative Indian cliché he's ever heard. "That was a long time ago," I say quickly. "I mean, I'm not going to cause any trouble – I'm not involved in anything that could wind up slapping you in the face. I swear." 

It's the truth – I don't drink or smoke, and after watching my mom for years, some financial responsibility rubbed off on me. I haven't been around anyone from La Push but Leah since this all started. The most I have of home are a few pictures of her, my mother and step-father, and the Young girls. Thinking about them sends my mind down a path I don't want to walk today, though, and I snap myself back into the present. I don't want to make a bad impression by zoning out. For some reason David reminds me of some of the people I knew growing up, even with his pale skin and Jewish features. He's not the type of person I want thinking badly of me.

A reassuring smile covers his face and his hand comes back up to slap my bicep easily. "We've all got pasts, right? As long as you can make rent fairly regularly and you don't do anything illegal on the property, we shouldn't have any problems."

I should be jumping up and down at getting a chance like this. This middle-of-nowhere town seems like the perfect place to start over. I have the feeling that I could even settle in an area like this if I wanted to – and maybe it's time to stop phasing; stop running, period. After fifteen years I should probably be thinking about growing up.

Something is still holding me back. Being this far away from Washington makes me uncomfortable. Usually I'm somewhere in British Columbia or Alberta, or spending short bursts of time in a Midwestern city. The idea of being so cut off – of not being able to come if they need me – sets me on edge. 

It makes sense, I guess. I've spent the better part of my life trying to put as much distance as possible between myself and that place. That day. But now that I'm finally doing it, severing ties with the pack in a more permanent way, my breath is coming hard and my stomach is turning to lead.

Because as much as I try to deny it, part of me needs to go back home. I need to see her, know whether she's like Bella or Edward or just like herself. I need to tell her that her parents loved each other and that they would have done anything for her; to tell her what happened, and that as angry as I am with them, maybe it wasn't Jacob's or Sam's fault. An explosion like that was almost unavoidable when there were so many uncooperative werewolves living near a coven of vampires, no matter how unconventional they claimed to be. 

I made a promise to Edward and I broke it. The least I can do is make sure his daughter is all right. I want to know that Renesmee has heard the truth and that she's healing. It seems impossible, but I want to know that this thing we were all party to didn't ruin her life before it even had a chance to start. 

What I need and what I want isn't really all that important in the grand scheme of things. Alaska isn't that far from the Olympic Peninsula, and there's never going to be a reason for me to run home anyway. Some stability is probably a good idea. And friends – people to laugh and eat and gripe with after so long on my own – that sounds good, too. I eye my new landlord, trusting and friendly. Good people, my dad would have called him. I offer my hand and he takes it with a broad grin. "You've got yourself a deal," I answer.

A weight slowly lifts from my chest and floats up so that all that's left behind is the memory. The wind screams against the roof in a poor impression of some animal's howl. It has none of the depth of a wolf's cry, eerie and guttural. 

I think I'm going to like the snow.

:o:+:o:

Seth was jolted awake by a fist pounding heavily against his front door. A faint, gravelly voice soon followed the intermittent thudding. "Seth? You in there?" He reached up to rub his face with the heels of his hands and then peered at the alarm clock through slitted eyes. It was five thirty.

The pajama pants from last night were still on, the oversized legs catching his heels and protecting them from the small shock of the cold floor against his bare feet. He didn't bother to put on a shirt before heading for the door and opening it. A gust of snow, wet and heavy, flew into the house as David knocked his boots against the threshold and stepped into the living room. He was wearing a heavy coat, a scarf, and a ski mask that covered his entire face. The extra layers obviously weren't helping much; despite them he rubbed his hands up and down his arms briskly and stamped his feet for warmth.

Still shivering, he ripped thick gloves from his hands and let out a string of muttered words through his chattering teeth. Seth's werewolf hearing was able to pick up one or two mentions of cold and crazy fiancées, as well as some expletives aimed at the storm raging outside. When his hat and gloves were finally set aside he turned to his younger friend, his thick eyebrows meeting in a frown. "Do you have any idea how cold it is? Why on earth don't you have the heater on at full blast?"

His shoulders rose and fell in a nonchalant shrug. "I didn't want to shell out the cash for gas," Seth explained. That much was true – he hated paying extra when he really didn't have the money to waste. Most of the heating packages up here involved buying a number of gallons in bulk, any leftover fuel simply going unused if you didn't use the full quota by the end of the winter. The idea struck Seth as careless, especially considering his core temperature. He rarely had need of central heating.

"And that's why you're not wearing a shirt, I guess," David said dryly. He had kept his coat on and was now moving into the kitchen, toward the wood burning stove. His hands busied themselves examining the dented door, which he'd advised Seth to get fixed months ago, while he scanned the surrounding area for kindling. "Seth, this is the same load of wood that I dropped off in the fall," he accused.

"Well, yeah. I haven't really needed it." Seth had followed him into the kitchen and was now busying himself pouring a generous amount of water into the carafe and scooping coffee grounds into the top of the coffee maker. "Uh, sorry I don't have any breakfast going yet. If you can stick around for a few minutes I'll fix you up some eggs and bacon," he offered through a broad yawn. He was too tired to feel embarrassed by the lack of upkeep he'd done around the house. It really wasn't that bad, anyway; he was probably handier with a hammer and nails than David, who was too busy with his practice to fix much up.

"Nah, Nadia fed me before I came. She told me to bring you some food, actually. I have a casserole waiting for you in the car," he said absently. His eyes remained glued to the movements of his hands. Catching as he struck it repeatedly against the side of the stove, the match David had grabbed from the counter finally lit. He placed it carefully against the wood, making sure to feed the already dying flames a few napkins and position them near some of the dryer bark. Seth noticed for the first time that his body was still being wracked with shivers. It gave him a much-needed reminder to cover up unless he wanted more questions about his often bizarre behavior.

He cleared his throat awkwardly as he grabbed a sweatshirt from the coat hook next to the door that led out to the garage and pulled it over his head. "I, uh, could use a refill on my prescription." The empty orange bottle on the counter glinted in the artificial light as he spoke, catching his eye and holding his distracted gaze. He coughed again when his friend turned to face him in disbelief.

"You actually went through all of the sleeping pills the pharmacy gave you? Seth, that's twice the normal dose I would advise putting any patient on."

"I have –"

"– A fast metabolism, I know," he interrupted. Seth watched warily as he rocked back on his heels and drew a weary hand across his forehead. The dark curls matted to his forehead emphasized the deepening lines in his skin, ones which hadn't been there a year ago, and Seth's back muscles spasmed as he realized that he probably hadn't changed at all in that time. His body was stuck at forever twenty – his mid-twenties if he worked to look older – and he was saddled with the same hormones he'd been dealing with at fourteen. Until he stopped phasing after hard nights or invested in a long distance phone plan to keep in touch with Leah, that wouldn't be changing.

"Look, dependency on a prescription drug is just as serious and just as hard to kick as an addiction to anything you'd find on the street. I don't doubt that this stuff doesn't hit your system like it's supposed to – you'd probably have been hospitalized for an overdose before now if it did – but it's not healthy for you to be taking so much regardless." David's eyes locked onto his. He seemed hesitant but determined. "I think therapy might be a good option for you. This insomnia obviously has to do with anxiety and stress. You could have PTSD and I wouldn't even know from the little you tell me."

In years past Seth's anger might have had him vibrating dramatically enough to rattle the floorboards. He had always had better control than most of the other wolves, though, and after years of managing his random outbursts of anger he had honed his reactions in situations like these to a small shudder, which could be passed off as merely a reaction to the cold. "Therapy isn't really an option for me," he said quietly.

David snorted good-naturedly. "Therapy is an option for everyone. I can pretty much guarantee that whatever you've been through, there is someone who's been trained to deal with it."

Not likely. The thought drew a genuine smile from him, as well as a brief and painfully humorous mental image of the pack attending a group therapy session. Seth ran a hand through his hair again, grinning impishly as he tried to make light of the situation. "Yeah, you're probably right. I'm sure all little brothers have been forced into dresses by their older sisters once or twice, right?"

"Right. Lord knows mine pulled hers down over my head often enough – nearly scarred me for life." As the fire flared up he hurriedly shut the door, turning the latch to keep it closed. "Anyway, I'll write another prescription for you, but I'm cutting your dose in half and I won't give you any refills until January at the earliest."

His heart sank as he thought of the sleepless nights that awaited him, but Seth merely nodded. He wasn't stupid enough to think that all the leeway David had given him wouldn't cause some problems with the medical board if it was ever brought to their attention – there were a lot of questions Seth had avoided answering, and most doctors would have refused to offer any help without that information. He was lucky to have a friend who was looking out for him, and he knew better than to push certain boundaries.

"I can refer you to someone if you want," David offered. He seemed lighter now that he knew he wasn't going to be met with open resistance. "There's no reason you need to travel all the way to Anchorage just to find somebody. I'm sure there are some therapists on nearby reservations if you'd rather see a Native."

The grin on his face was probably starting to look clown-like, but Seth found it hard to think of any other response. Even after all this time, lying still left him feeling slightly sick, and there wasn't any chance that he would actually be seeking out a shrink to help him work through his nightmares; much less one who would give him ties to another reserve. His night terrors were better left alone, anyway. He'd tried his best to shut that day away and only bring it out when necessary, and there was always the chance that eventually he would be able to. Sooner or later the details would blur or people would stop asking, and then he would finally have the option of forgetting.

Sooner or later wasn't coming as quickly as he would have hoped.

"Or not," David surmised, sighing softly. He waved his hand when Seth started to talk, unsure of what he intended to say but feeling the need to apologize all the same. He had been ducking out of confrontations since he was little, but never had it made him feel this guilty. And a part of him, small as it was, didn't want to avoid the not-so-subtle questions.

"It's okay. It's just that we worry about you, Nadia and me. She views you almost as family – the baby cousin she never had. I don't want whatever's going on in your head to get in the way of the rest of your life."

"Yeah," Seth echoed. Knowing that he had as long as he needed to face the rest of his life darkened his mood somehow, as if his future was a moot point. They talked for a few more minutes before he walked his friend out, swallowing guilt over the fact that he had cared enough to wake up an hour early and drive out to see him just because he hadn't been around in the past week.

When the door had closed behind David and the coffee was ready, Seth threw on jeans and a pair of boots and headed outside. Mrs. Gable had been complaining about the time it was taking him to restore her end tables, and he hadn't exactly been enjoying all the time he had had to put in so close to the town gossip. Her prodding questions burrowed under his skin in a way few things did. Luckily for him, the aging widow was heading to Juno for a doctor's appointment this afternoon. Work generally gave his mind a chance to run free without wandering to places he wanted to stay away from, one of the reasons he tried to fit as many jobs as possible into his weeks. Today the hours of careful sanding should prove a pleasant distraction.

He walked away from the tiny house without bothering to lock up, not once shivering as snow buffeted him from all sides.

:o:+:o:

It was past nine when Seth reached home. He'd finished up early on the job that afternoon and run into Nadia on his way through town. She had immediately wheedled him into coming over for dinner, citing a brand new cookbook as her official excuse. Seth had given way easily. Nadia was always eager to get feedback on her kitchen experiments – which were almost always successes – and they both knew that if she could pull the 'company' card on David he'd be less likely to skip his evening meal to focus on paperwork.

The three of them had spent hours around the table after the Asian-themed supper, mostly trading stories from their day and complaining about the state's sky-high cost of living. After realizing just how much time they had passed, he reluctantly made his excuses and ducked out. Luckily, David's fiancée wasn't suffering from one of her infrequent bouts of nosiness and had let him leave with only a smile and hug. Going through the normal nighttime preparations now, Seth almost regretted not having an excuse to have stayed a little while longer.

Seth wasn't completely unable to get to sleep on his own: there were nights when he fell asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow, most often when he was either unusually calm or drop-dead tired. Those nights were full of dreamless, uninterrupted sleep. The unnaturally high energy level the pack shared also helped. But when he wasn't occupied with work or something triggered memories of the pack, it was almost certain he'd spend the night tossing and turning. Even little things could set him off, like a tense exchange with someone or an empty refrigerator. The norm during those nights was to eat up time in any way possible. Usually he paced his bedroom floor or whittled something small, adding needlessly fancy detail and borders. It was only when he really needed to channel his emotional energy into something physical that he ran, and then it was almost always as a human. In wolf form he ran the risk of encountering too many unwanted voices.

He could already tell that tonight would be long and restless, most likely filled with the nightmares which had plagued him recently if he did manage to slip into unconsciousness. A sleeping pill or two would be the easy solution. Maybe that was the problem, he thought uncomfortably; maybe he'd been taking the easy way out on too many nights.

It wasn't as if he was addicted – yet. He knew enough about addiction to know that you generally weren't dependent at the beginning, though. Even if he wasn't entirely convinced he needed to stop, the closest thing he had to a best friend was. What David thought, not just as a doctor, but as a friend, should be important.

There's a pack gathering tonight. The thought came to Seth unexpectedly. Almost as soon as he realized what it meant he was moving for the stairs, ripping off his shirt and pajama bottoms. He should have an hour or so to himself, he realized with excitement. The only other person who would think of phasing tonight was Leah, and if her date went as well as she'd hoped she wouldn't be in wolf form at all tonight. He grimaced at the thought and resolved not to share a mind with his sister any time in the next few weeks.

Winds were unusually high, and the icy air buffeting his skin seemed to strip it away, bringing it back to him as something strong and new. He swallowed a delirious moan as the change rippled over him, muscle, bone and sinew all shifting around vital organs to form something else entirely. Phasing at will had never been hard for him, nor had keeping a lid on his temper – usually, at least. He'd had his share of outbursts in the early days. Everyone had. Now his dual nature was merely an accepted part of him. Sometimes he wondered if it was the only true part left.

Out in the arctic temperatures, with no one around to see and no secrets he had to keep, his body eagerly rose to meet the challenge of frozen snowdrifts and the dense forest. Every nerve ending in his body screamed in some exotic pleasure/plain combination that sent adrenaline racing through him at breakneck speed. Regardless of the feet, yards, miles covered, the distance he spanned was never enough.

For a few tense minutes the hanging guilt of running away coiled in his spine and made him falter, but time wore on and gradually the feelings receded as his motions became entirely about the chase. The ending destination was unimportant in the face of the peace the in-between provided him.

He was just beginning the loop back toward his house when Leah's mind abruptly invaded his consciousness. She spoke almost immediately. Seth! Thank God.

Images and sensations from her evening rushed over him in a confusing jumble – the sound of a young woman's frantic voice over the phone, telling her to get back to La Push immediately, the pressure of a wall digging into her back as her lips met her mate's in a desperate, needy duel, Jacob's chillingly deadened eyes meeting hers without apology.

What happened? He asked tensely. Without realizing it, he had quickened his flagging pace and was now flying across the ice and snow at a dangerous rate.

The question piqued Leah's memory of a pale face surrounded by messy auburn hair, the attached brown eyes growing in size until they loomed at the forefront of his vision. The sensation of remembering hit Seth and mixed with a sharp pull he couldn't quite identify.

Renesmee found out about Edward and Bella. She did something, no one really knows what, and now Jacob is saying the imprint is broken. Seth, she's a complete mess. She's saying she wants to get away from the pack as soon as possible – I don't think she's even going to wait to say goodbye to her parents. 

Are they going to let her go? Can she even survive on her own? The underlying panic in her biting answer had his already alert protective instincts burning. The echoed memory of his own first months in Canada sent his ears flattening back and a small whine escaping from his throat. Thinking of a girl of the same age without the protection of werewolf strength or speed setting out alone filled him with the urge to run even faster, as if speed would somehow solve the problem. Everything his sister had experienced that night was still crashing into Seth in waves, and it was a struggle to keep from submerging into his own mind under the weight of her memories. He forced himself to listen for an answer.

They don't really have much choice in the matter. She's going whether they let her or not. And then, after a tense pause, Leah quietly thought: But if I told her to go somewhere – to someone – I think she would listen.

The unspoken request hung between them.

The ghostly scream of the wind pushing against him was suddenly quiet, all the usual wilderness sounds muted to his ears. Every movement seemed to make his muscles groan in protest.

Leah's nervous uncertainty throbbed in both of their heads until the pressure was almost unbearable. Through the super reality of the moment Seth found himself surprised there had even been a question. How soon should I come?

She sounded worn and entirely too brittle when she replied. Don't. I'll send her to you.


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N:** … wow. So, uh, it's been awhile. If you still remember this fic, hopefully you'll enjoy the following monster of a chapter, once again filled with a few answers and many more questions. Innumerable thank-you's to Raych, my beta, for holding my hand and putting up with my two AM whining, as well as the ladies on the twilighted forum thread who checked in over the months to see if I was still breathing – and especially to fireandice, who wouldn't let me forget to finish this chapter when I felt like wallowing in writer's block.

* * *

_"We must die to one life before we can enter another."_

–Anatole France

**Chapter Five**

Claire's eyes darted around the tiny kitchen nervously. Her eyes briefly settled on the family's beaten and ancient oven, and she noted the time glaring back from the stovetop clock with quietly concealed panic. Nessie had been in the bathroom for over an hour.

An absence like this from Erin wouldn't have been worth noticing. She had always been the family's early riser, leaving herself a short eternity for morning preparations by locking everyone else out of the house's one bathroom long after the water had run cold. This habit had hardly affected Claire; she had been consistently late, always having to yank on yesterday's jeans and gather her crumpled homework from the floor in the few minutes before the school bus's arrival. It was little Nessie who would knock timidly on the bathroom door and ask for her toothbrush, prepared to get ready over a kitchen sink filled to the brim with dirty dishes. Mornings like that had been chaotic, filled with the smell of breakfast burning and the sound of their mother's frantic voice as she struggled to pack lunches and push everyone out the door in the same breath.

For a brief moment she wished they could all be transported back in time, that Erin's new haircut had resulted in an argument instead of an appreciative comment and that the jeans she wore were hand-me-downs three times over instead of something new that she had paid for with her own money. She brought both legs up and rested her feet on the countertop, ignoring the way it creaked under her weight and absently fingering the stretchy material of her jeans. Her left hand knocked against her knee and her eyes were drawn downward, to where the sun glinted off the small diamond set in her engagement ring. The suppressed ache for Quil rose up in her chest like a band around her lungs, making it at once hard to breathe and impossible to slow her short gasps.

Three more months and they would be married. After a lifetime of sweet friendship and painfully innocent romance, they were about to cross the final milestone. Then no one, in the pack or in her family, would be able to look at them as anything but equals. That, Claire decided, was worth trading all of yesterday's simplicity – even if it did mean dealing with her mother's wistful face and her father's bittersweet grins.

She couldn't help but suspect it was different for her little sister. She'd seen Nessie's interactions with Jake – the way she seemed to shrink away from his touch, however unconsciously, and the unspoken question in her eyes whenever she observed one of the other imprinted couples. It was easy to write off her concerns as hyper-sensitivity to Nessie's moods or big sister over protectiveness. She knew it was normal for a relationship to have growing pains after undergoing such a drastic shift. But the lost expression on Renesmee's face when someone mentioned Jacob, the questions still left unanswered sixteen years after her adoption… these details all gave Claire the small, niggling feeling that something was wrong and none of the pack was willing to let them, the weak and vulnerable imprints, in on the secret.

_You're blowing this out of proportion,_ she told herself, irritated by her own anxiety. Only Nessie could have gotten her this wound up about something for no good reason. She was probably up in the bathroom toweling off and smiling at the thought of seeing the La Push branch of their family, not contemplating her place in the universe or stockpiling difficult questions to ask their parents tomorrow morning. That was the way it had always been, though, Claire realized: the few people who took notice of Nessie were almost obsessively fussy with her, despite the fact that she had consistently proven that she could take care of herself.

The uneasy silence in the kitchen broke when Erin entered the room. The heels of her pumps clacked against the tiles in a startling explosion of noise. "I'm going to go check on her," she announced decisively. "Emily said that Quil would try to get here before ten, and it's nine thirty now." Her hands, clenched in front of her and tightening spasmodically as she spoke, drew Claire's eyes.

"Give her a few more minutes. Quil isn't close yet." She met her sister's quizzical look without flinching, refusing to let her tongue get the best of her when Erin shook her head and made a muttered comment about imprinting. It was well known that most of the imprints had a sixth sense when it came to their wolves, although some of them showed greater signs of it than others. In Claire its manifestation was purely physical, an instinct that allowed her to feel when Quil was near or find him immediately in a crowded room. Other imprints, like Emily, who had been married to Sam for fifteen years now, seemed to share a mental connection with their other half, to the point that the alpha wolf's wife could almost always predict her husband's decisions regarding the pack. For the most part it was a small change, something that flew under the radar of those on the rez who didn't know about the wolves. There were times, though, that it flared up and became impossible to ignore or explain away as simple familiarity. Erin had never been able to accept it as something natural, much less good, and had often clung to it as proof that Quil's bond with Claire had somehow damaged her. Arguments on the subject had been frequent between them when Claire turned sixteen and began dating him officially.

Instead of pursuing a conversation on the subject, though, Erin walked to the abandoned breakfast tray and quickly packed its contents away, bagging the leftover muffins for later and scooping the rest of the fruit into the blender. Her movements were brisk and sure, and for a moment it was easy to forget that she hadn't lived at home for the past four years. The lack of space between them brought their shared moodiness into sharp relief. After a tense second they both seemed to relax minutely, happy to find company in their worry.

Claire was still unable to hold back a grimace when she caught sight of the other ingredients Erin was adding to Nessie's smoothie, thinking it looked about as bad as something packed with so many vitamins and fibers could be expected to. As she snapped a lid down on the pitcher and turned the machine on, though, her sister seemed oblivious to how nauseating it was just looking at the concoction. "Nessie's never going to eat that," she said doubtfully, wincing as her own stomach flipped.

Erin flicked off the blender and grabbed a tall glass from the cabinet. "Of course she will." Her eyes zeroed in on Claire's face and she pointed her index finger accusingly. "_Bee_ does what she's told."

The pointed barb abruptly brought her back to the early morning conversation between the three of them, and suddenly the idea of dealing with her sister's theatrics was exhausting. "Don't push her around today, okay? Don't take advantage of the fact that she won't fight back." She met the eyes shaped and colored exactly like her own and waited until Erin had tamped down whatever argument she was itching to make and nodded reluctantly.

The small relief only highlighted her sharp need to see Quil, every cell from her head to her toes demanding he be here _right this instant_. She needed to hear his voice. To watch her fingers disappear in his football-sized hands and laugh at his over-the-top cockiness. To get some answers for her sister.

She steeled herself against the image of Jacob Black's furious eyes locked on hers, convincing herself that any bad reaction on his part would be worth it if she managed to unearth the truth. Jacob had had his chance to volunteer the information, and waiting for Renesmee to lose patience would take more mornings like this one than Claire was willing to sacrifice. It no longer mattered whether or not it warranted the secrecy and avoidance that had surrounded it for so long. If learning about her past broke Nessie's heart then Jacob would be there in an instant, ready to reconnect its scattered pieces and make her good as new.

The extent of his involvement in her past, however large or small, wouldn't change that. There was no damage, Claire believed, that imprinting couldn't heal – no choice that could alter a covenant that deep. All of her doubts to the contrary would be washed away as soon as she had the reassurance of Quil's touch and the knowledge needed to put peace back into Nessie's eyes. After this had been dealt with everything would fall into place, she told herself resolutely; her sister's night terrors and feelings of displacement would become a thing of the past. Whatever uproar she encountered in the process would be well worth it if the reward was her sister's peace of mind.

:o:+:o:

Nessie noticed the tension in the kitchen as soon as she walked into the room. Erin, who was crouched in front of the refrigerator, was in her direct line of vision. Out of habit more than any real interest, she sought out Claire and saw her standing against the opposite end of the counter, her arms crossed defensively over her chest. It was obvious from the thorough silence and strained atmosphere that neither had spoken in several minutes.

"What's up?" she asked quietly. Two sets of eyes immediately snapped to her face and her instinctive urge to withdraw into silence, something she battled during even the easiest of encounters, heighted to an almost unbearable level. She tugged at the sleeve of her sweater restlessly, her fingers brushing against the ever-present promise bracelet as she did so.

"This has been a really sucky morning, huh?" Claire said bluntly. She raised her eyebrows at the marked negativity, something that was rare from her sister, and wondered if her expression and body language were so transparent that commiseration seemed like the best way to placate her. The thought made her apprehensive and had her mental defenses rising instantly.

Whatever Claire's intentions, her comment set Erin at ease. Her clenched shoulders had relaxed when she emerged from her spot behind the refrigerator door a moment later bearing a large cup that was filled to the brim with something dark and green. "That's putting it lightly. And for what it's worth, I'm sorry I didn't pick a better time to open my big mouth and set off a bunch of life-changing revelations. What's the saying – like a bull in a China shop?"

"It's not your fault," Nessie replied quietly. There had been plenty of times over the years when Erin's innocent but insensitive comments had created needless drama; Nessie's current dull anxiety had nothing to do with any faux pas on Erin's part. It might have been easier if that was the case – simpler, perhaps, than finally understanding the sheer volume of lying that had been directed at her over the years.

Renesmee had never questioned her parents' motives for adopting after having two children; silently, she'd even wondered if her mother might have miscarried once or twice, or perhaps undergone an involuntary but necessary hysterectomy at Claire's birth. It seemed more likely, though, that she'd simply been unable to conceive again and had wanted to have another child. The fact that her parents had decided to adopt a white baby had been a source of curiosity over the years, but embarrassment had kept her from ever asking them directly. The possibility existed that her placement with them had been purely coincidental, and the thought of unintentionally offending them terrified her.

From the time she was little she had known intuitively that she was better off not asking questions. This had never bothered her, especially since it seemed unlikely her parents would have that many answers for her; she had always assumed that her adoption, whether private or through the state, had been impersonal and official, an assumption no one had ever bothered to correct or even challenge. All the close friends of their family lived on the reservation or down in La Push, and none of them had ever hinted or let it slip that the decision to adopt had had anything to do with the pack or with Jacob.

_Jacob._ Just his name sparked a chorus of contradictory emotions and thoughts inside her. She knew that if she let them take root they would carry her to conclusions she didn't want to face, and it was only with that knowledge in mind that she had been able to sluggishly make it through her morning routine and face her sisters. The realization that she would be seeing him soon was also pushed away in a desperate bid for control. It was safer to focus on everyone else's deception than to question why the one person she should be able to trust with her life had never once been honest with her.

And there was certainly plenty else to occupy her. The more Nessie replayed encounters with the pack, family birthdays and serious conversations with her parents, the more obvious it became that everyone had taken great pains to keep her in the dark. So many small, precise falsehoods had been woven into her understanding of her history, all to keep her from connecting a few vital dots. Every member of the pack, as well as their imprints and children, seemed to have known enough to avoid mentioning certain times and places in front of her. All of the awkward moments that she should have encountered as an adoptee, especially one of a different race, had never materialized.

Their best efforts hadn't been thorough enough to keep her from piecing a few key facts together. Renesmee knew about the initial vampire influxes in the area, and it was impossible to miss how close they had been to her birth. There had always been the silent understanding that the departure of most of the vampires had come at a price. Whether her parents had been friends of the Quileutes or innocent victims of a vampire attack, it seemed likely that that they had somehow been connected with the same battle that had driven out so many dangerous predators. Maybe – and the thought hurt more than anything ever had – vampires had killed her parents because of her tie to Jake. Maybe the one connection that had made her life seem worth living was the reason her parents no longer had lives of their own.

"You look glum, kiddo." Erin had joined her at the stairs sometime in the last few minutes. She wondered if her older sister had tried to get her attention before now and felt heat flood her ears at the thought. Nessie focused on the offering Erin was holding out, a large cup close to overflowing with filmy protein shake, and kept her expression neutral.

"I think it's a little early for that," Claire commented. She eyed the drink with doubtful eyes, looking mildly revolted, and sent Erin a brief glance that Nessie was too exhausted to decipher.

"It's always too early for this," she grumbled. She rubbed her aching forehead with the heel of her hand, struggling to soften the stiff, jerky movements into something soothing.

"Focusing on the awful taste will keep your mind off of other things," Erin said resolutely, suddenly sounding very much like their mother. Although she usually walked with her head buried in microscopic details, only choosing to come up for the odd humiliating admonition or familial screaming match, Erin's big sister instincts were on prominent display when it came to Renesmee's health, probably because she'd been old enough in those first years to understand how truly fragile it could be.

Nessie looked between her sisters, trying to measure when the mood of their conversation had gone from stressed to playful. Her emotions were still off-kilter from this morning's talk and her hyperactive mind felt as if it belonged to someone else entirely. The hour-long shower had provided plenty of time for her mind to conjure up various terrible scenarios, and in her fuzzy state of mind she hadn't been able to give any of them logical and peaceful conclusions. In some ways she felt unable to take even this small action. With weak and unsure hands she took the shake from her sister, her movements as hesitant and half-hearted as her earlier greeting had been.

Claire rolled her eyes and then smiled encouragingly, still battling the urge to cringe. "This is going to be a fun day," she promised.

_Fun_, Nessie thought, envisioning Leah, Erin, Quil, and an endless supply of bridal magazines all contained in one small room. She took a long swig of her smoothie and grimaced.

:o:+:o:

The car engine was still a muted roar outside when Jacob bound through the front door. His eyes found hers immediately. Despite the events of the morning a helpless smile played at her lips as she took in the instant brightening of his face. The impression his expression made seemed to suggest that seeing her lifted a physical weight from his shoulders. He looked like the happiest man on earth.

This, more than anything else, made it impossible to be angry at Jacob. He was so easily pleased by her, whether she'd done anything or not. The friendship he provided made almost anything forgivable and allowed her to sweep all her uglier feelings under the rug without peering at them too closely.

Renesmee caught a glimpse of Leah in her periphery before Jake's face filled the foreground of her vision, but before she could greet her two large, blazing hands were bracketing her face. The unexpected touch infused her with the urge to jump out of her own skin, irrationally afraid that when he pulled away her cheeks would crumple into ash. Then his intense stare drifted away from her eyes and fell to her lips, filling her with trepidation and providing the uneasy reminder that she wasn't as comfortable with this new part of their relationship as she pretended to be. There was no time for hesitation, though: in the next moment his lips had landed on hers, hard and quick and so very _solid_.

Despite its force the kiss was short. Nessie was still struggling to open her eyes as his hands left her face and easily slid down her arms. He brought both hands to one of her wrists, and as her eyelids finally burst open she saw him regarding the exposed skin with a wonderment that both thrilled and terrified her. The attention he lavished on her was too much for comfort, his unspoken expectations more than she felt able to meet.

With the need to collect herself foremost in her mind, she craned her neck in an effort to find Claire. The endeavor proved useless; Quil's burly frame obscured everything but two slim, brown arms that made it less than halfway around his torso. She turned to find Leah when a sudden gust of hot air hit the vulnerable skin at her wrist.

Her reaction was instantaneous. Waves of vertigo and panic swept through her body at top speed, mixing with the need to snatch herself away from Jacob's grasp as quickly as possible. The urge multiplied tenfold as Jacob softly kissed the skin that covered the connective joint between her hand and arm. She bit her tongue desperately. Tears stung her eyes and she swallowed down the beginnings of a whimper, instinctively understanding that if she let it loose it would turn into something ugly and uncontrolled. _Please stop please stop please stop PLEASE –_

A rumbling growl broke up Claire and Quil's light chatter and threw the room into sudden silence. Jacob raised his head and spied her expression, and Nessie struggled not to shrink away in the face of his immediate concern. He had probably taken her accelerated heartbeat as a good sign, she realized. The tight hug he folded her into jostled her aching limbs and cut off most of her air supply, and she leaned into it eagerly. She pushed the strange, discomfiting chill zipping down her spine into the back corner of her consciousness, too shaken to try to examine it objectively. Instead, she focused on the familiar warmth and comfort provided by Jacob's arms. This embrace was the connecting thread in all of her childhood memories. It had saved and smothered her – always reassuring her, forever leaving her lonelier than before.

Now she squeezed her eyes shut and reminded herself that this body holding hers, this broad chest and this angular chin and this skin that approached the heat of a stovetop burner, was the reality. Whatever had happened before was the culmination of the day's stress and even more proof that her body was determined to destroy itself. As if her rationalization had summoned it, she gradually became aware of the familiar arrhythmia of her heart, evidenced by the pulse beating in her temples like twin wrecking balls.

"What's wrong?" He hadn't pulled back yet. The warmth of his breath as it feathered against the skin behind her ear reignited both her sense and her lust, and she managed to calm her features, translating her relief into something less shaky. The words she wanted to say, the pleas to be held and to hear him talk about something, anything until her mind stopped trying to leave the rest of her behind, remained buried under the scream she had refused to let loose.

"We'll talk about it later," she promised, speaking in the same whispered tone he had used a moment ago. She knew that Quil would hear, as he always did, but trusted that he wouldn't repeat the exchange to Claire.

She could tell that Jacob wasn't happy with the answer, but Leah was already moving forward and taking hold of her. Less than two seconds had gone by before the female werewolf had steered her away from Jacob and to the front door. "Maybe some air will help," she said. Her voice was calm and her touch soothed the younger girl, but when Nessie's eyes flashed to Leah's face she saw the same undercurrent of menace that had been present for as long as she could remember. It kept everyone else frozen in place as they exited the house.

Everyone, at least, but Jacob. "She may have a temperature. What have you had to eat today, Ness?" The words were punctuated by the hollow clunk of his footsteps on the wooden front porch. She shivered as the biting Washington breeze swept through her hair and ruffled her clothes, leaning into the warm side Leah had offered and keeping her head down. At the moment she wanted nothing more than to ignore Jake altogether.

"Maybe getting mauled by someone twice her size sent her system into shock," Leah retorted, her arm drawing Renesmee even further into her. It was only as the female werewolf's heat diffused her shivering that Nessie realized her entire body was ice cold. More tears gathered in her eyes, large and warm and completely unreasonable.

For once Jacob bypassed the chance to pick a fight with Leah, instead taking a step forward; the movement spanned the distance of the tiny deck and put him less than an inch away from their backs. "Do you want me to see if I can get hold of Embry? Scarlet may want to run a few tests."

The suggestion made her stiffen. Embry had imprinted two years after Jacob, and his wife was the only doctor Nessie had ever been allowed to see – and even that had only taken place through official channels for the last eight years. Dr. Call was a soft, good-natured woman with an underlying steeliness, the perfect counterpart to her kind and reserved husband. She had a bedside manner that made her popular with the La Push and Forks residents alike, and usually it was easy to miss the small indicators of her alarm: the frown that formed between her eyes every time Nessie came in for an examination or had blood drawn, the downward pull of her mouth when she realized her most troubling patient had grown an inch and lost five pounds. But although it was evident that she cared for the youngest member of the pack family, Renesmee sometimes felt that the _how_'s and _why_'s of her illness consumed Scarlet's mind far more than any possible course of treatment. She hated the thought of her every hiccup and migraine being studiously written in a case file for later review, her health treated like some grisly science experiment with only one possible outcome.

With her head still bent forward and her shoulders hunched, she shook her head minutely and let out a soft 'no'. Then, mustering her energy and nerve, she asked quietly, "Could you just… give me a minute? Give us a minute?"

The pause that passed after her question seemed interminable, but it was only a few seconds before he turned and reentered the house. The front door's hinges squeaked and groaned as Jake closed it. Then there was only the sound of Leah's heavy breathing and the far-off shriek of the wind, and in the absence of a reason to maintain control the earlier whimpers escaped. Leah said nothing, simply pressing her head into the crook of her neck and stroking Nessie's fair hair away from her forehead with long, callused fingers.

Her outburst didn't last very long, and when it was over she spent one more moment collecting herself on Leah's comforting shoulder and then straightened awkwardly. The older woman took it as a cue to speak. "We dropped Kim off at the rez convenience store so she could grab some 7-Up. Do you want to walk over and meet her?"

"Yeah." They stood and started down the sidewalk wordlessly. Silences with Leah were easy for Nessie, a fact that struck the other members of her family as odd. The two of them fell into their own rhythm when they were alone together, though, something she suspected had to do with the fact that she had never viewed Leah as a victim or as someone to be wary of.

Kim met them when they reached the corner of the residential street. Her face was puffy, carrying a shine which managed to be attractive instead of off-putting. "This kid is going to be the end of me," she joked, one hand massaging her back in small, tired motions. "God, I don't know what it is with this one. None of the first three were this difficult."

Leah stood back from the visibly pregnant woman, eyeing the green tint to her skin with distrust. Nessie, on the other hand, went into Kim's arms almost instantly – the tiny woman was her favorite of her pack aunties. She exhaled shakily as fleshy arms enfolded her. They released each other reluctantly, and Kim searched her face with dancing eyes. "So? What did he say?" she whispered.

Nessie recalled the heated conversation from last night and shook her head softly. She saw Kim's face fall in sympathy before she smiled sadly. "You know they just care about you, right? Jacob especially – he forgets sometimes that you aren't caught up with him in age. All he wants is for the two of you to settle down and have lots of babies!"

Renesmee hid her faltering expression by turning around and clasping one of Kim's hands. "We'd better get back before they send out a search party." Leah guffawed.

The van was already filled with people. Jake and Erin could easily be heard exchanging barbs from the backseat, and Nessie saw with a grin that Claire had sweet talked Quil into giving her shotgun.

Before they could reach the vehicle she grabbed Leah's hand, waiting until Kim had climbed into the driver's seat before speaking lowly. "You never told me that I was supposed to live with you." She didn't bother concealing the pleading note in her voice. "And I never knew that Emily and Sam were going to take me in. Why hasn't anyone ever told me that?"

She was too late in noticing the anger radiating from Leah, and her reply felt like a slap in the face. "We never told you because it didn't matter."

Nessie dropped Leah's hand. It was a struggle to resist looking down. "It matters to me. And it matters to me that you never told me." The heat in Leah's eyes receded until she had regained her usual calm, and she brushed Nessie's hair behind her shoulder absently as she gathered her thoughts.

"I can't tell you what you want to know. I'm sorry." More words seemed to be on the tip of her tongue, but with a frustrated shake of her head she turned on her heel and climbed into the seat next to Quil.

After a moment's hesitation Nessie followed, groaning when she realized she would spend the entire trip crammed between Erin and Jake. She fell onto the bench without comment, too embarrassed to talk to either of them. They pulled away from the curb after Kim sternly reminded Quil to buckle up to a chorus of raucous laughter. The muscles in her leg tensed when Jake hesitantly rested his hand on her thigh, and she forced herself to relax before meeting his worried stare. "You scared me." His pained eyes made her flush guiltily, promising herself that regardless of the circumstances she would never jump away from him like she had this morning.

"I didn't mean to," she responded. She scooped his hand up and held it between hers, rubbing the fevered skin tenderly.

"I probably overreacted. You just… reminded me. Of someone I used to know."

Nessie squeezed his hand, overwhelmed by the darkness of his grief. It seemed so similar to hers, as if they were choked by the same weight. "I didn't mean to," she said again, letting him pull her into his chest. She didn't protest when her arm started to fall asleep near the end of the ride, or when Erin glared at them while Claire looked helplessly at wedding magazines. Her own fears held her at his side, wishing she could disappear into him completely.

:o:+:o:

The sun had almost completely disappeared when she slipped away from the rest of the party. For awhile she skipped small pebbles across the ocean surface, squinting at the indigo and violet clouds with disinterest. As the seconds rolled into minutes the sensation of stretching too tightly to fit into her skin increased until she was breaking into a sprint, angling away from the water and the largely abandoned barbecue at her back. She only stopped when she was more than a hundred yards away from the others and could barely make out their faces. The air escaped from her chest in a loud, breezy sigh, security enveloping her like a blanket. Her arms swung behind her head, and she turned sideways to maximize the pleasant release the position gave her muscles.

Renesmee spotted her almost instantly; as the only other white person on the beach she would have stood out even if they hadn't been standing so near each other. The stranger's hair was a muddy brown and fell past her waist, billowing crazily in the evening breeze. She warily eyed the pack members and imprints from her position on the fringes, her arms crossed protectively over her stomach in a makeshift shield. There was something almost skittish in her demeanor whenever someone approached. Instead of nodding in greeting or meeting their gaze, she would jump out of their path and study her feet until they had passed. The picture she made when compared to the laughing and boisterous group behind her was jarring – one that Nessie had imagined more than once herself, but with the outsider's face made hers.

For a painful minute she waffled back and forth over whether or not to approach her. Being so far from home wasn't usually an issue for her when she visited La Push, but after fighting with Jake and reaching a standstill with Leah she had felt jittery and fragile while trying to make small talk with her friends and family. A foreign urge to experience something outside of the tight folds of La Push urged her into motion now. She pursed her lips as she walked, hugging her middle in a similarly defensive gesture and looking down when the growing wind threw handfuls of unkempt curls into her eyes. When she came to a stop the other woman continued looking ahead, not giving any indication that she'd seen her. Then she blinked slowly, her head turning sideways, and her eyes subtly widened in surprise. "Are you crashing too?" she asked. Her voice was surprisingly husky, as if she'd been smoking for years. It was easy to detect the strains of sarcasm and unease in it, and for some reason this made Nessie more forward than she usually was around strangers.

She raised one eyebrow and chuckled silently. "Nah, I'm a regular. You know, I just keep hoping if I stick with this crowd for long enough some of the tan will rub off on me." The stranger gave a strangled laugh, and the blush that suffused her cheeks was nearly imperceptible in the fading light. Companionable silence fell over them as they faced the ocean. Then, her normal social clumsiness returning, Nessie lightly touched the girl's elbow. "You're Natalie, right? The new imprint?" She shifted under the sharp glance Natalie pinned her with and hurriedly added, "One of my older sisters is an imprint. Word travels pretty quickly in this circle." She was cognizant of the fact that she had omitted her closest connection to the pack and tensed under the weight of the small lie. It was so nice, though, to be looked at normally by someone, just once having a gaze directed at her that wasn't filled with questions and assumptions.

Natalie snorted. "I guess it would, considering most of them communicate telepathically." She drew in a trembling breath, her hands clutching in the baggy material of her shirt. Something about the action was so innately vulnerable that it made Nessie rethink her earlier guess at the imprint's age; she saw now that the dark's shadows had created hollows in her face where there were none and that the body that had seemed so mature from a distance still showed signs of growth. The newest pack member's imprint couldn't be any older than Claire. "It's kind of a double whammy, you know? Not only are they a different race, they're also a completely different life form."

Renesmee's thoughts turned to Jake's enthusiastic greeting that morning and a lump lodged in her throat. _Not all that different._ She was surprised to realize that she would have preferred there were a few more barriers between them, restrictions that would give her time and space for the thinking she so desperately needed. "It definitely comes as a surprise."

"It wasn't exactly a welcome one, either," Natalie admitted. One of her eyebrows lowered more than the other as her expression shifted into a frown.

"The werewolf part or the soul mate part?" Nessie asked. She had the sensitivity to be embarrassed by the unabashed curiosity in her voice, but she found herself eager to hear the answer all the same. Information on the new wolf had been spare, and news of his imprinting had reached her just that afternoon. Now that she was no longer the last known imprint she was eager to find out if there was someone who shared her own doubts and insecurities; if maybe Natalie's relationship, too, had hit a snag where all the others' had gone smoothly. It was stifling to wonder if she was the lone defective imprint – the only one who had ever felt suffocated or unsure.

She answered bluntly. "Both. We've both been struggling with his… phasing. I think he's more upset by all this than I am, which is probably part of the reason it bothers me so much. The growth spurts, and the constant fever, and that look he gets in his eyes when he starts shaking – it's like he's getting sick. And he's so lost…" Her voice broke and her face tensed against the onslaught of sudden tears. When she continued a moment later her voice had lost the edge of helplessness, instead ringing with annoyance. "And we've been together since freshman year of high school. We were engaged before any of this happened. I didn't need anyone to give me some cosmic swirl of approval, and I am so _sick_ of everyone giving me these patronizing looks, like it's finally okay for us to be together. And those elders? Every time they see me it's like someone's forcing them to smile around a mouthful of shit. 'Really? _Her_?' Because I'm obviously not worthy of being part of their special group. As if this imprinting crap isn't the most fucked up part of this whole thing."

Renesmee stared at the ranting girl in horrified fascination, hoping for both their sakes that no one was close enough to hear what she was saying. She had never heard anyone – even Leah – speak about imprinting with so much derision. That alone was bad enough, but speaking out against the spirit warriors who were viewed by the tribal council as sacred was an insult she couldn't imagine would go unchecked by any of the elders. She wished there was something she could say that would be comforting or, at the very least, commiserating, but Nessie had no idea what it would help to hear. It wasn't as if she could say with a clear conscience that things would get better in time.

But Natalie, it seemed, wasn't in need of any reply; she continued speaking through pursed lips, figurative steam pouring out of her ears as the volume of her voice grew even louder. "Like those Young girls. Is that supposed to be true love, locking a kid into a relationship when they're still in diapers? Rushing marriage before she's even done with school? And just thinking about what happened to the other one…."

A sickening surge of adrenaline danced through her abdomen. The feeling of eyes on her made her look back at the fire pit, and she saw Jacob and Sam watching the two of them with hard expressions. Sensing that their conversation was about to be broken up and not entirely sure why, Nessie turned her attention back to Natalie. "What… what about the younger girl?"

Sharply pulling at a few stray locks of hair, she turned her stare on the horizon. Her eyes had become startlingly dark, widening with some feeling akin to horror. "Way back when the pack first formed, Jacob Black was best friends with the daughter of the Forks police chief. Her boyfriend and his family were vampires – I guess that was the reason why the new generation started phasing. Anyway, they got married, and he was going to change her. But she got pregnant."

_With me._ Bile lodging in her throat, Nessie wildly scanned the shoreline for Jacob's face. _"You just… reminded me. Of someone I used to know."_ The words reverberated in her head on an endless loop, and suddenly the grief that had saturated his eyes made sense.

The center of her universe had… _murdered_… her parents. Jacob, who had pampered and protected her for the whole of her life, whose struggle to keep her near had grown so all-consuming that free will was a thing of the past.

Jacob, who had most likely been in love with her mother.

"Sam and the other wolves wanted to kill all of them. Nip the problem in the bud, I guess. But Jacob wasn't willing to do it. He broke away from the pack, and the girl wolf and her brother went with him. They tried to protect the family, but when the baby was born Jacob imprinted and just went crazy. He attacked the vampires and made his beta get the baby out of there while the other kid got torn up trying to hold off Sam's pack.

"They ripped the entire coven to pieces, including the human girl. Then they set the house on fire and walked away. Didn't bother looking for the kid who was half dead in the woods. Didn't even call the firehouse." She stopped, gulping for breath and looking like she was trying not to gag. "No one outside of the pack and the vampires even knew about the baby, so they handed her off to the Youngs' and made sure her grandfather never found out about her. She's completely human – supposedly, anyway. But her health has been in the toilet since she was a kid. They're not really sure how long she'll hold on."

"Nessie."

The voice that broke through her nightmare didn't belong to Jacob but to Claire. Her face was streaked with tears and her hair laid in a matted mess around the crown of her head. Claire's lips, usually turned up into a smile, were trembling wildly. It was as if every emotion that should have inundated her had instead been turned on her sister.

"What's going on?" Sam's sharp voice was loud in the silence, his steady glare turned on the newcomer who had been so free with the pack's secrets. With effort Nessie looked away from Claire and fixed her bewildered stare on him. This man was an honorary uncle. He had rocked her to sleep, invited her into his home. Sheltered her from every bad thing that threatened to injure her.

"You… _killed_ my parents. My family." His eyes were pained but unrepentant. The lack of shame filled her with numb amazement.

The spoken response, however, came from someone at the edge of the woods. "It was to protect you."

Jacob's shoulders were slumped. Her eyes, by now adjusted to the darkness, took in the resignation pouring from him, and she wondered how long he had stood hidden in the shadows. The moment marked the first time she had ever thought of him as a coward. "If it was for my protection, why do you look so guilty?" He flinched as the wind carried her question to him. Then his hands were reaching out tentatively, beseeching her, and she realized with a small jolt that the only reaction it provoked was mild impatience. Her mind had shut itself away someplace safe and left her body to stumble through the confrontation without aid.

For a moment she saw them in a different life, and the image was so vivid her eyes strained to process it: parents younger than her, pale faces like the one from her memory smiling at her lovingly – and Jake, the family friend and love of her life. Impossible as it was to explain, she was somehow sure that even in that world there would have existed a decision that mirrored this one.

The word that tore her away from him forever was clipped off tonelessly. "No."

And as it left her mouth the torrent of rage that built within her shook her to the very core of her being, making rational thought or action impossible. An anguished howl tore its way out of her, ending and beginning again and again as she gasped in fresh lungfulls of air. Her hand clawed at the bracelet tied around her wrist and she tore it apart with bruising force. The broken fragments of Jacob's promise settled uselessly in the sand.

No one stopped her when she stumbled off into the trees, running for all she was worth.


End file.
